Cantek 1440, Birmingham, Wilton CT 1440, and others Rebuild

[turbo711]

Well I've been busy with the lathe the last month doing a bit of everything. I posted some of the electrical box stuff before the server issues, and I haven't posted it again, so here it is:

I had an idea to cut the box out with the cnc router:



When I went to fold it, I didn't calculate the gap necessary to fold a perfect 90, so the flanges broke off:


And I ended up welding it all the way, which what I was trying to avoid in the first place:


After a generous application of flapper disk grinding and some rivnuts:


The motor box had to be dealt with:


16 gauge (.060") steel was used.


The good old pencil transfer trick:





I bought some HSS drill taps from banggood and they worked beautifully for this application:



So after the boxes were made and painted, I wanted to do something with the base before the lathe assembly started. Mainly enclosing it for storage. First the legs were lengthened and made adjustable to a comfortable height.



The existing stand is 1/4"x3"square tubing and it is heavy.


Some 1/8"x1 1/2 angle was used to form a frame for the sheet metal.


I wanted to fab up a spindle brake at some point, so I welded a pedal while I still has easy access.


A bicycle cable with a disk caliper will be attached eventually(hopefully)...


Tacking some door frames:


Tack adjustment for alignment (big PITA):


And on with the 16 gauge:


Holes were drilled and the panel held tightly to the angle iron while being tacked in place:


Sometimes the clamping got tricky...


And since I don't have a sheet metal brake I decided to just use small angle iron on the corners. And even if I did have a brake capable of 16 gauge, I'm sure I would still mess up the bends, so better to be safe than sorry. Studs were used to hold the corner angle iron.


A back-splash was also fabbed to keep the chips under control




Some door latch parts were machined on the Standard Modern:


The rest were zip cut and ground out of bar stock and shaft.



Assembled latch with paper shim for welding clearance...



A memorable moment when you realize the corner has been turned and you are on your way back to a working machine:


A little bondo for the top sheet metal edge and some paint.


So after thinking about the whole apron suspended by 2 8mm bolts, I looked at the casting and determined the spots for 2 more bolts.


The bolt holes were drilled and tapped as well as an oil fill and drain and oil level weep screw. The carriage and apron were assembled with the new worm gear on the feed shaft. After much finger and hand dexterity tests with a allen key (and about 45 minutes) the worm gear carrier was installed behind the apron. I eagerly turned the carriage handwheel to test the smoothness of the action and heard a metallic sound hitting the chip tray. The key just slid out of the worm gear! I thought that couldn't happen because the carrier would stop it. I was wrong and I was in for some more hex key fun. I am now thinking why the key was hard to remove from the old worm gear. It must have been loctited in or something. Anyway I removed the gear and tig welded some steel on each end to stop that from ever happening again.





Anyway back to the wiring:


Starting the process


Control box complete. Of course it wasn't that easy, it took me the better part of a day to figure out where all the wires went.


That's all for now folks. Still need to make some face-plates for the front of the lathe and figure out the brake thing as well.

Mark